Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Time Value In Use: A Missing Foundation

Even though value in exchange is the wealth that gets noticed, it's easy to forget how value in exchange overlays a number of value in use foundations, which include time value. Value in use also includes time use which exists in multiple non rival capacities - some of which are cultural in nature. Other value in use components are more clearly defined - particularly asset formation and knowledge use as they exist in relation to economic access and labor force participation.

Asset formation has been measured and emphasized of late, and (value in exchange) knowledge based skills sets are debated on a regular basis. Unfortunately, few have considered the possibility that total economic participation (time use aggregates) could have greater bearing on economic circumstance, than either of these.

Aggregates for economic time value, hold active - as opposed to passive considerations - for value in use. The practicality of time value can contribute to ongoing economic activity, whereas housing assets - while "practical" - mostly contribute to ongoing activity through taxation. Present housing structure also reflects the same rival preferences which now designate "preferred" knowledge use structures. Hence the value in use structure of time can be endangered, when wealth is circumvented by methods which gradually limit overall labor force participation. For instance, housing assets can only "park" nominal income to the degree that income remains engaged in current activity.

Value in use settings for time aggregate capacity, are vital. Compensation for value in use settings, would provide means to ensure continuous story lines for knowledge use, as well as meaning and context for specific place. Labor force participation - whether through self directed or other means - is what embeds the components which give stability to economic structure. The marketplace which needs new definition, is that which holds the time value of interpersonal relationships.

Without a marketplace for time value, the threads which bind knowledge and people together could gradually unravel, from all but a small part of the world's population. Even though corporations and governments provide continuity for valuable thought processes, they only manage insofar as their limited missions and value in exchange time use settings will allow. How might compensated value in use, be capable of strengthening the social "fabric"?

Compensated time on value in use terms, could be thought of as a series of ledges along a steep cliff or mountainside. These ledges can stop or at least slow the "fall", whenever institutions and individuals find themselves in the midst of setbacks. The process would protect knowledge use diversity, skills diversity, investment strategies, and the concept of time value as capable of options for non rival cooperation and coordination.

Understandably, both for-profit and not for profit structures would prefer to maintain control over economic value in exchange structures as they presently exist. Increasingly - however - these already existing structures are proving insufficient for complete labor force participation and economic access. It's time to consider other means of preserving both economic access, and the foundations of knowledge which have existed for so long.

When nations are doing well, it can seem as though possible for a vast wealth of knowledge - from centuries earlier - to remain in the public realm. But when nations stumble, their ability to remain stewards of earlier existing wealth capacity, becomes uncertain. If nations are willing to look to their own citizens and compensate them for time based value in use economies, the chances of maintaining both past and present wealth, will be vastly improved.